Giving In
by Miz Thang
Summary: Yield to temptation it may not pass your way again.


**Title: **Giving In  
**Author:** Miz Thang  
**Characters/Pairing: **Pansy Parkinson, (HP/GW, HG/RW, GW/BZ mentioned), (DM/DG, PP/BZ established), DM/PP  
**Rating:** FRM / R  
**Word Count:** 2365  
**Warnings:** Melodrama. Could you call I romance? I don't know.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything but the little story's idea. Everything else belongs to who it belongs to.  
**Summary: ** Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again. For **30hath**'s May 31st contest.

Pansy Parkinson was a promising young woman with great potential and many possibilities ahead of her. She had a great head for wizarding business, and an exceptional eye for what was popular. At only the age of twenty-four, she was the most sought after woman in England (at least, according to _Witch Weekly's Women to Be Edition_). All in all, she was successful. _Very_ successful.

"Pansy, you do remember that the dinner starts in ten minutes, don't you? We can't be late, and that means we need extra time in case there's traffic in the floo."

And Pansy was also very married. Heavily influenced by their mothers, Pansy and Blaise Zabini tied the knot very soon after their consecutive twenty-second birthdays. To think, she had no doubt they told each other, Pansy was such a prominent face in wizard business, and Blaise was up and coming in politics – they'd make a powerful couple. And they _were_ a powerful couple. As for love…?

"Keep you knickers from twisting, Blaise! Draco won't start until we arrive anyway!" Pansy yelled as loud as she could, hoping he wore an annoyed look on his face at the slight screech in her voice.

Pansy didn't love Blaise. And she was more than a little bit sure that Blaise didn't love her either. Like she mentioned – completely and utterly forced into it by their fantasizing mothers. If Pansy would have had her way, she'd have chosen Draco Malfoy (who as _already_ in a place of Wizarding power, being old money and everything – much older than the Parkinsons, or the Zabinis).

She took one last look at herself in the mirror and smiled, the reflection giving her an appreciative wink. Satisfied, she turned to leave her room, only to find Blaise reclining on her couch. She mentally noted that she'd have to have a house elf clean it later.

"Are you ready, then?" he asked, gracefully rising from his seat.

"I am." She replied and followed her husband to the fireplace connected to the Floo Network. She watched him toss floo power and yell out the address of which the extravagant party was the be held. He disappeared through, and, with the air of someone with an intense attitude, she followed.

-

Draco Malfoy was engaged to marry Daphne Greengrass. Granted, Pansy hadn't seen that coming, especially when the two never said more than five words to each other in the full seven years they spent at Hogwarts.

Pansy, realized, ten minutes in, that it was almost like a Hogwarts reunion, except, of course, that Draco had only invited the most prominent faces in England at this current date. Of course, that would be the only reason to see Hermione Granger (Magical Animals' Rights Activist, and one of the best known medi-witches) and her fiancé, Ronald Weasley (the Cannons' Keeper – not the best, but very good) in a corner of the room, conversing closely with Harry Potter and Ginny, his wife, at a Malfoy affair. And she's sure they accepted for that same reason.

"Hmmm…" Pansy smiled, figuring that she might as well have a little fun as she eyed Ginny Potter. "Blaise, there's the love of your life, with her husband."

Blaise gave her a withering look. "Now you're just being bitter, Pans."

"Being bitter? I'm not bitter. I'm only wishing I had a time turner to undo the past three years of my life, before the Ministry destroyed them all, of course." Pansy said, smiling at a passing couple and giving someone a kiss and a hug as they paused before entering the party.

"And you think that's not bitter?" Blaise asked incredulously.

"Oh, Blaise, my dear, dear, husband." Pansy waved brightly to Millicent Bulstrode, and through gritted teeth said, "You haven't seen me bitter yet, but I'm sure you will."

She strode away from him, pausing to hug Draco and kiss Daphne (though she did linger a bit wistfully), and then heading to the bar. It was a classy, she thought, very much so. Not that she expected anything less from Draco. Draco did everything in class these days.

"Fire whiskey – straight." Pansy told the bartender. He nodded and she placed her arm on the counter, her chin held up by her hand as she twisted a bit uncomfortably in her seat to take in the rest of the party.

Of course, Blaise was flirting with Millicent, the woman taking guilty looks Pansy's way before joyously following him out onto the dance floor. _One less friend_, the somewhat bitter woman mused to herself.

Pansy rolled her eyes at their disgusting display and took her drink from the bartender. She drank it in one swallow, her eyes shifting from Blaise and his decision of the night to Daphne as she gloated over the ring she wore with Tracey Davis.

"Another one," she told the bartender.

"Hitting it hard, Pansy?"

She turned around in her seat fully to see Draco standing not two feet away, one perfectly blond eyebrow raise in question as the bartender placed Pansy's second drink down.

"Yes – well – Blaise and I…" Pansy trailed off and made an odd gesture with her left hand as she took her drink with her right. What could she tell Draco about her marriage? The fact that it was all a fraud, and that she wanted someone else? She pondered on it, and decided she'd do just that.

"I don't like him. Or love him." She said, and tilted her head in thought. "In fact, I'm sure I may hate him."

Draco watched her down the second drink and ask for a third. "You do realize, Pansy, that there are such things as divorces?"

"Oh, I realize, but imagine the look on dear Marie Zabini and Amaranth Parkinson's faces when they find out their little attempt at matchmaking failed, because Blaise is a complete, and utter, whore." Pansy grinned, taking her third drink without pause. "And I…have never stepped out of my marriage as of yet, despite the fact that there are infinitely better wizards in England. Not proper for a Parkinson, according to mother."

Pansy was drunk. Now, she'd only been at the party for about forty-five minutes, but she had three glasses of fire whiskey within the last five, and who knows what she drank before Blaise told her to get a move on. And, to top things off, Pansy was a well-known lightweight, which would readily explain Draco's attempt to nip a bad situation in the bud.

The thing was, however, that Pansy wasn't loud or boisterous. She wasn't obnoxious, either. She was a person that would be quietly bitter, and run her mouth without any tact. Now, the tactless part wasn't much of a difference from her sober state, but it was obvious in the event that she would never tell Draco about her desire for him unless heavily intoxicated – and she had all but said it outright.

He seemed to realize that she hadn't made a generalized comment and that she had, much more likely than not, directed it at him in particular. "Pansy – "

"Oh, don't worry…you're pretty little blond head, Draco. I won't try anything." Pansy said, calling to the bartender. "You got anything stronger than fire whiskey?" He nodded and she smiled. "Good. Give me a double."

She saw Draco roll his eyes before he took the seat beside her. "Pansy, I'm going to be nice once – stop drinking and do something…else. Forget Blaise tonight, and forget – "

"You?" Pansy smiled again, bitterness tinging the edges of it. "_Au contraire, mon ami_ – I have gotten myself stuck deeper within the past three years. There is no forgetting something like that."

She smiled once more in thanks at the bartender and knocked back the drink. It burned the back of her throat, but she reflected that she liked the feeling it gave as it warmed her body. "Oh, this is strong." She said in awe. "What is it?"

Before the bartender could answer, Draco took the glass and placed it on the counter. "Mrs. Zabini is done for tonight." He then took a firm hold of her arm and practically yanked her to her unsteady feet.

"We're going to fix this before you ruin _this_ party." Draco said as Pansy tried to focus on him, except she was seeing two – well, it didn't bother her that much because she found both to be really pretty.

"Right. Shouldn't…shouldn't you and Daphne be gracing your guests?" Pansy asked as she wobbled at Draco's side, leaning heavily on his arm.

"And we can't do that if you stand on a bar and start singing Weird Sisters songs like you did last time, can we?" Draco retorted.

Blaise gave Pansy a mild look of disdain from where he stood, his hand steadily climbing up Millicent's side as they swayed on the dance floor. Pansy sneered, mouthing, "whore." Blaise, however, only smiled, as if Pansy had bestowed upon him a compliment, or mouthed something endearing across the room, and Pansy hated him more than ever, just for that.

"He does it often, I take it." Draco said as they left the room gingerly. The last thing he seemed to want was for Pansy to get sick and up heave on the nice pretty tile. She'd received the bill by owl the last time that happened.

"My dear…husband…has been with Ginny Potter, Sally-Anne Perks, Lisa Turpin, Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Tracey Davis, and I believe he's using your engagement party to catch Millicent." Pansy said, though her words came a bit slurred, the alcohol making its way through her system.

"Of course, you may not know this, but Ginny Weasl – I mean, Potter – was the only one he got so terribly serious about. And she turned down his offer to leave me, because she went and fell back in love with Potter. Besides, why would she want to marry someone who could cheat on their own wife?" Pansy continued. "And I shove it under his nose every…_bloody_…chance I get."

Draco didn't answer her and Pansy wondered what it would be like to find out all your best friend's dirty laundry from his drunk, bitter wife. A moment later, Pansy decided she didn't really care, and the only thing better than telling Draco, would be owling his mother and submitting the story to the Daily Prophet. She's sure Rita Skeeter would have a field day with it.

"Where are we going?" she asked when they reached the fireplace connected to the floo.

He took a pinch of the powder and tossed it in, saying, "Zabini Mansion," before shoving Pansy through.

She landed on her butt, dizzy, in the middle of her comfy room, and was reminded that she needed to clean her couch because Blaise had sat on it. Before she could call a house elf, however, Draco stepped through her floo.

"You couldn't get off the floor?"

"The world's spinning, or didn't you know?"

Draco, once again, rolled his eyes at her. "This is the last time I do this for you." He said, helping her to her feet and move in the direction that lead to her wing (she and Blaise didn't even try to share beds). She stumbled along with him, deciding that if she could find her bed, she'd like to hid under it for the rest of the night.

She held on tightly as he pushed the door open to her room, and he kept a firm hold on her waist. Of course, being Pansy was really quite inebriated, she managed to mess that up and trip. He caught her however, and Pansy received as a gift a very up close and personal glance at Draco's face. She'd have to trip more often, she decided.

_And still very pretty_, a voice inside her head concluded. Pansy agreed full-heartedly.

"You do have a potion for hang – " Draco started, only to very suddenly be cut off when Pansy titled her head up towards his and kissed him.

In reflection, Pansy would have liked it better is he'd just automatically pulled away, rather than what she'd got from him. He paused, as if his brain hadn't yet calculated what was happening, before he responded, kissing her with a fervor she was sure equaled hers. And then, of course, knowing Draco, he remembered where they were in their lives and pulled away.

He gave her a dark look. "Pansy."

"I know, Draco. You're engaged, I'm married. We shouldn't do anything. But I, for one, am not going to put up with Blaise's shit anymore. Fire with fire."

"Then don't involve me."

"Except you want me to." Pansy said and Draco narrowed his eyes at her. "Just now, you kissed me pack. And it wasn't impulsive, because you don't do things like romance or impulse. You wanted me. And, I remember, what you told me at my engagement party."

"Don't bring that up – "

"So, you have issues with the night you got pissed drunk for no reason, kissed me, and told me that it shouldn't be this way?" Pansy asked. Suddenly, she felt very sober. Tracey had said something about it once. Something about how, in a moment of great importance, it can seem like not even the largest amount of alcohol can mess things up, almost as if you become resistant.

Draco gave her a look that she recognized to border on dislike, and turned to leave.

She caught the end of his robe sleeve, and he turned back to face her reluctantly. "What's our motto, Draco?" He didn't answer, and she took it as a step towards victory for herself. "_Yield to temptation; it may not pass your way again_. And if you wanted things to be so different three years, ago, then you should recognize this for what it is. We may never have this chance again."

To her, it seemed as if they had held eyes forever, her daring Draco to actually give in, and him debating whether to actually do it or not. And in the end, temptation won, because he kissed her. And there was no pulling away, or hesitation anymore. It just was.  
_  
__Fin._


End file.
